Growing up, Jonathan Donis, ’24, lived in affordable housing with his family and felt the benefits of a stable living environment. But around him, other community members faced housing insecurity, and he began to realize how important stable housing is for people to be able to “think a little bigger,” he says. At Stanford, he majored in urban studies and, through his coursework, assisted on real estate and planning projects while learning from housing practitioners in the public sector. After interning at Prologis, a real estate logistics company; PCCP, a real estate finance firm; and Urban Planning Partners, a land use planning firm, Donis transitioned into the nonprofit sector. He currently serves as a development analyst for EAH Housing, an affordable housing organization that serves communities in California and Hawaii. He is based in San Rafael.
HOME WORK: Donis’s role involves research, financial modeling, and analysis. (Photo: Courtesy Jonathan Donis)
Since he started the job in February, Donis has collaborated with local governments, such as the cities of Emeryville and Sacramento, to develop plans to construct and fund new affordable housing. Along the way, he’s learned about the politics of building cities that work for people from all income levels. He says the financial modeling expertise he gained at PCCP and Prologis has helped him navigate state funding challenges as his team creates plans for energy-efficient family housing and accessible senior homes. “Housing is the base for opportunity, so it’s more than just housing,” he says. “It’s about creating access to opportunity.”
STANFORD: What led you to your position as a housing development analyst, and to your organization particularly? How did your life experiences influence your path?
Donis: I had always been interested in cities, and development in general. But I also grew up in affordable housing. When you’re focused on just surviving, or how you’re going to make rent, it’s really difficult to think beyond what your next week is going to look like.
I grew up in the Westlake district of L.A., between downtown and Koreatown, in affordable housing, which was really great for my family. But I also saw other people—family and friends—who were constantly moving, living in overcrowded apartments, and even being priced out and having to move elsewhere. That made it clear that housing is a really important issue, and I wanted to be a part of addressing those challenges that cities face.
What does your job look like day to day?
Every day is a little different so far. It can be researching opportunities, such as electric vehicle car sharing at a new development. That’s the most recent thing I was working on, trying to understand what is out there, who we can partner with, and who can help us with infrastructure and documentation.
I’ve also been working on basic analysis of whether a site can even support affordable housing, especially considering the cities’ attitudes towards affordable housing. Some cities might have their own housing trust funds, which are really helpful. It’s a lot of research and understanding the local context.
This interview series focuses on careers in public service. How does your work influence the public good? What’s your mission with your work?
There’s a lot of opportunity to use housing as a way to make cities more sustainable, not just economically but also environmentally, by shortening commutes or building housing that’s actually energy-efficient. It motivates me to know that this hard work will eventually result in people being housed, which has major ripple effects in communities and families.
What experiences at Stanford prepared you for the role?
I had the opportunity to take great classes, everything from real estate law at the Law School to real estate development and finance through the civil engineering department. The courses that were taught by practitioners were probably the most relevant to what I’m doing now and really helped prepare me for work. They helped me understand my own experience and passion and think about how I want to channel that into a career.
I took a class on affordable housing development, and one of the projects was researching naturally occurring affordable housing [i.e., existing residences that are affordable without government subsidies]. Now that I look back at that project, it’s kind of guiding the current work that I’m doing. Because the funding environment isn’t great for new construction, I’m thinking about naturally occurring affordable housing, and what programs are out there to help acquire these buildings and make them permanently affordable.
What are some significant challenges you’ve encountered in your role, and how did you overcome them?
My personal challenge has been understanding that I don’t know everything. In and of itself, affordable housing is really complex. I talk to people who’ve been doing this for decades, and, you know, they all say, “We’ve learned to be experts on finding the answers,” whether that means knowing who to talk to or where to look. Just trying to figure out the answers and being curious and resourceful is ultimately the main skill you need to be successful in any career.
What is your favorite part of your job?
I love that this work is interconnected, like considering how policy is connected to urban design and how that is shaping the state’s path to sustainable cities. It really is just so interdisciplinary, and I feel like I’m continuing what I loved to do at Stanford.
But it’s also the human and social aspects. Different populations have different needs, and I’m enjoying learning about, for example, family versus special needs developments, what types of services are required, and who is helping make these decisions. It has been really eye-opening, and I’m learning new things every day.
What are the most important skills your job requires?
Communication is a big one. Like I said, affordable housing takes a village to get done. So, there’s a lot of coordination and a lot of management of different parties. Being effective at managing tasks is really important, more so than I expected.
On the technical side, I think having financial modeling skills has been really helpful. I’m really lucky that I was able to have those internships in the market and real estate world that really pushed for modeling skills. They have been really helpful now to deal with the complexity of affordable housing.
What advice would you share with students or alumni interested in pursuing a similar career path?
Talking to people in the industry is very important to understand the day-to-day. A lot of people probably wouldn’t be interested in having to research policy and what is going on at the local level, but there are people who really enjoy that and are really interested in understanding how these things interact with development. Other people just look at the financials and figure out if they can make money on a development. For me, I figured out that I was more interested in a holistic approach to real estate. Affordable housing is awesome in that you have to look at many different things, not just the financials. You have to look at the local politics, but also what’s going on at the macroeconomic level of the economy, what’s going on at the federal level with their policies and how that’s affecting the economy. There’s so much that goes into understanding affordable housing, and it just makes things interesting.
Also, taking project-based courses is important. When I was at Stanford, I didn’t realize how closely they resembled real-life career projects, but Stanford professors or practitioners do a really great job at modeling, at a smaller scale, real life.
Apply to programs aimed at building the next generation of people in your interested career. They have great opportunities for mentorship, internships, and networking with other people who may be your future colleagues. These programs are run by people who care about their work and want to see more talented young people in public service fields.
Karis Chen, ’28, is a former editorial intern at Stanford. Email her at stanford.magazine@stanford.edu.
